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THE UNION OF INDIAN
PHILOSOPHIES.
"All partitions of knowledge should be accepted, rather for lines to mark and distinguish than for sections
to divide, and separate, so that the continuance and entirety of knowledge be preserved." Bacon.
This saying of the greatest and wisest man of his age has now greater application in
these days and in the land of Bharata, than it was in Bacon's own days. It brings out clearly
enough what the purpose and utmost scope of all knowledge can be, and the true principle of
toleration and liberalism that ought to guide us in our search after knowledge and the
ascertainment of truth. Unless we carefully sift and see what each is, which is placed before us
as knowledge and truth and for our acceptance, and mark their lines of similarity and difference,
we will gradually emerge into a condition of intellectual color-blindness; we cease to know
what is color and what is knowledge and what is truth; and the final result is an intellectual and
moral atrophy and death. When in, therefore, seeking to avoid such a catastrophe and suicide,
we indulge in moral and intellectual disquisitions, the caution has to be borne in mind also that
such differences in thought should never divide people in their mutual sympathies and their
aspirations in the pursuit of the common good. There is no necessity at all for angry discussions
or acrimonious language. Whatever the capabilities of the human mind may be, which may yet
remain hidden, yet the human mind is in a sense limited. The laws of thought can be determined
positively, and they are as fixed as possible. We can only think on a particular question in a
particular number of modes and no more, which in number, in their permutations and
combinations, is fully exhibited. Difference in point of time, in clime and in nationality have
not affected thought in the least. People have given expression to the same moral sentiments,
the same feelings; and the same beauties in nature, and the similarities and the disparities that
may exist, have been minutely noted by the poets of all lands. As such, it would not surprise
us if the same theories about some of the grand problems of human existence have been
discussed and held since man began to ask himself those questions, and for ages to come, also
the same theories will endure. The same stories have been told and the same battles have been
fought over and over again, but we note also that the honors of the war have often rested and
followed the predilections of the people and the eminence of the story teller for the time being.
Theories and Schools of Philosophy have had each its own hey-day of life and glory, and each
has had its fall, and a subsequent resurrection. Even in the course of a single generation, we
see a thinker who is accounted as the greatest Philosopher of the day, as one who has
revolutionized all thought and philosophy, discounted very much and pale before the rising
stars, whose fads take the popular fancy. By these observations, we do not mean to discourage
all theorizing but only to show the uselessness of any dogmatism upon any points, and we,
more than ever hold that all partitions of knowledge are useful and should be accepted for
consideration. We have ventured upon these observations as in these days, and in this land,
what is considered as knowledge and gnanam and philosophy is all seeking a narrow groove
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and partaking of an one-sided character, and thereby tending to obliterate thought, ignoring the
thin and delicate partitions obtaining between different kinds of knowledge and the
consequences could not altogether be beneficial. This process of ignorance and obliteration has
been going on for some time past, and has been mainly assisted by false or queer notions of
what constitutes toleration and universalism. The habit of trying to defend everything and
explain away everything from one's own preconceived point of view is clearly a pernicious
habit intellectually and morally. The vain search after a fancied unity has ended in a snare
often-times; and a similar attempt now a days to reduce every view to one view is purely a
procrustean method and fallacious in the extreme. Where is the good of such a procedure?
There could neither be profit nor pleasure in seeking such similarities and uniformities in things
that are essentially different. Will there be any good in such knowledge and reasoning as this?
Black is the same as read, because both are colors. A crow is the same thing as ink, as both are
black. Such attempted unification of knowledge is purely delusive and of no moment whatever.
When again, commentators say and contend that a certain passage only bears, out their
interpretation and no other and that each one's own interpretation is the best, yet it must stand
to common sense that these views could not all be correct nor could the author have intended
all these meanings himself. Our Hindu commentators have often taken the greatest liberties
with their author and they have often proved the worst offenders in forcing meanings upon
words and passages which they and the context clearly show they do not bear. Yet we are often
asked by some very tolerant people to accept every view as truth and to adopt their view as the
greatest truth of all. As many of these ancient books are written and commented on in an
obsolete tongue and which very few could find time and trouble to master, this delusion has
been kept up by a few, and people have often been led by the use of certain charmed names.
But the illusions begin to be dispelled, as we get to understand what the real text is, in plain
literal language, thanks to the labors of European Scholars, and without encumbering ourselves
as to what this commentator and that commentator says. And some of these scholars and
translators have been quite honest and outspoken in what they think as the true view as borne
out by the text. And no scholar has as yet come forward to controvert the view taken by Dr.
Thibaut as to how far Sankara's views are borne out by the text of the Vedanta Sutras. We hope
to discuss these, in course of time, as the translation of Srikanta Bhashya, we are publishing
proceeds apace, by comparing and contrasting these; it being only borne in mind now that
Srikantha was the elder contemporary of Sankara and the commentary of the former is the
oldest of all those on the Vedanta Sutras now extant. We however propose to discuss in this
article the questions in connection with the Bhagavad Gita which Mr. Charles J ohnstone has
raised in his valuable paper we extracted in our last, from the Madras Mail, "The Union of
Indian Philosophies." He puts himself the question to which of the three Schools of Indian
Philosophy - Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta, this book belongs, and says that his off-hand answer
would be that it is undoubtedly one of the text books of the Vedanta , school, one of the
weightiest of them; and yet, for all this, he thinks that there are other aspects of the Gita, and
that there is very much in them which belongs to the Sankhya, and even more that is the
property of the Yoga school; and he explains below how the Gita beginning with a ballad on
Krishna and Arjuna, gradually expanded itself into its present form, incorporating into itself all
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the teachings of the Upanishads and the teachings of the Sankhya and Yoga schools, together
with puranic episodes of the transfiguration, which in the opinion of this writer 'reproduces all
that grim and gruesome ugliness of many armed Gods, with terrible teeth, which the Puranas
have preserved most probably from the wild faiths of the dark aboriginals and demon
worshippers of Southern India. We will deal with this last statement, which is a pure fiction
later on; and the point we wish to draw particular attention to is this, that it has struck the writer
as new and he gives it as new to the ignorant world that the Gita does not represent only Vedanta.
To the Indian who knows anything of Indian Philosophy, this could not be news at all, as all
the modern Indian schools, including Dwaita and Visishitadwaita and Suddhadvaita, claim the
book as an authority and have commented on it too. But the European who has learnt to read
the books of one school of philosophy only (all the books translated till now in English are
books and commentaries of the Vedanta School), knows nothing of any other school of
philosophy existing in India and what authorities they had, and has gradually come to deny the
existence of even such; and young Indians educated in English deriving all their pabulum from
such source have also been ignorant of any other phases of Indian Philosophy. We well
remember an Indian graduate in arts and law ask us, if there was any such thing as a special
school of Saiva Siddhanta Philosophy. Of course, he wears Vibhuti and Rudraksha and
worships Siva and he knows that the Great Guru Sankara was an avatar of Siva Himself and
all the English books that treated of Hinduism only talked of the Vedanta Philosophy and his
surprise and ignorance as such were quite natural. But as a result of the great upheaval that is
going on, and the greater attention that is paid to the study of our philosophic and religious
literature, even our own people have been slowly waking up to the truth of things. That stoutest
adherent of Vedanta, the editor of the Light of the East was the first to yield and to point out in
his articles on the 'Ancient Sankhya System' that the Gita expounded also the Sankhya system,
though he tries to make an olla podrida of it by saying that Vedanta is Sankhya and Sankhya
is Vedanta - that the Gita does not postulate many Purushas (souls). A Madras Professor
declared in the Pachaiappa's Hall that in some of the special doctrines of the Vedanta, such as
the doctrine of Maya, and the identity of the human Soul and the Supreme Soul etc., the Gita
is silent. And our brother of the Brahmavadin also affirms in his editorial on 'Maya,' dated 15
th

August 1896, after stating that the word Maya scarcely occurs in the principal , and where it
does occur, it seems to be used mostly in the old Vedic sense of power or creative power,
declares, that "on the whole the attitude of the Bhagavad Gita towards Maya is similar to that
of the ; and it is rather difficult to evolve out of it the later Vedantic sense," of illusion) or
delusion.
And when it is admitted also that the Buddhists were the first to develop the Maya
theory of illusory nothings, who on that account were called Mayavadins by the other Hindus,
and that Sankara only refined this idea, meaning an illusory nothing, into meaning a
phenomenal something, though some of his later followers even went so far as to forget
Sankara's teaching as to revert to the Buddhist idea of a blank negation and hence were called
cryto-Bhuddhists (Prachchanna Bhaudhas), (vide p. 297-Vol. Brahmavadin and Max Muller's
lectures on Vedanta), and our brother's opinion being merely that in the Vedas and Upanishads
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and Gita, we have merely the germs of the later system of thought out of which was elaborated
the Vedantic theory of Maya, - a process of double distillation - the point is even worthwhile
considering whether Gita has got anything to do with the Vedanta at all. And it can also be
positively proved that it has no such connection. Today we venture to go no further than what
is admitted by the other side that Gita contains the exposition of other schools of philosophy
which according to Mr. Charles J ohnstone, postulates the reality and eternality of matter
(Prakriti) and spirit (Purusha) and that the Purushas are without number and that there is one
Supreme Spirit different from the souls.
In understanding the word Sankhya as used in the Gita our writer falls into a mistake
like many others that it means the Philosophy as expounded in the Sankhya School of
Philosophy which is attributed to the Sage Kabila. We have shown in our article on 'Another
Side' (vide pp. 21 to 34) that it meant no such thing, that it meant merely, a theory or a system
or a philosophy or knowledge and that the Gita instead of having anything to do with Kabila's
Sankhya distinctly repudiates it and goes on to postulate its own differences, and this we
showed by quoting several passages and that the proper name of the system evolved in the Gita
is 'Seshwara Sankhya,' as distinguished from Nireshwara Sankhya of Kabila. To say that this
philosophy or the other grew out of this or that is pure fallacy, unless we have real historical
evidences about it. We might propound a riddle whether Theism or Atheism was first and
which of these rose out of the other. You might argue that Theism was next and grew out of
Atheism, as materialists (Lokayitas) only admit the eternality of matter and would not admit of
the existence of any other padartha.
And you might say they came next because they denied the existence of God admitted
by Theists. Yet such is the argument covered up in statements frequently made that, of the six
systems of Philosophy, one was first and the other arose out of it. They do not at all refer to
any historical growth or chronological order. Even in the days of Rig Veda they believed in
Gods and in one God, and we presume there were unbelievers also. Mr. J ohnstone is also wrong
in saying that the postulate of three powers of nature - we presume he means Satva, Rajas and
Tamas - is peculiar to the Sankhya, as also the divisions of gnatha, gneyam and gnanam. We
fail to understand what he means by Sankhya Yoga reconciler. Sankhya, if Kabila's (Pure
atheism) postulated no God and Yoga postulated God. And is there any meaning where one
talks of a book reconciling Atheism and Theism? And of course, another writer talks similarly
of Vedanta-Sankhya reconciler. In every school there are certain postulates or padarthas which
are affirmed and some which are denied. Some postulate only one padartha, some two, some
three and some none, and are we to talk of reconciling these, one with the other, simply because
one of the postulates, very often things and their qualities which could not be denied by any
one, is common to all or some? This is often the kind of writing that passes for sound
knowledge and liberalism and universal philosophy. We dare say the Vedanta as understood
by Sankara was not even in existence at the time of the battle of Kurukshetra nor was it probably
known to the writer of the Mahabharata and Gita, in his days whenever he wrote it. The whole
Mahabharata has to be studied to know what the teaching of Gita is and in its historical
surroundings. The phrase 'Sankhya and Yoga' is used throughout the Mahabharata as often as
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possible and in such conjunctions where the meaning is unmistakable as referring to the
postulate of a Supreme Being.* If Kabila is praised by Krishna as the greatest among sages,
it is because the same book Mahabharata shows elsewhere, how Kabila from being an atheist
was afterwards converted to the knowledge of God, and as all such converts, he obtained
greater glorification at the hand of his quondam opponents. And as we have shown elsewhere
that the Gita is a clear controversial treatise, he could not do better than cite Kabila himself,
who gave up his former faith, in refutation of the school of Atheistic Sankhya. Scholars have
observed how the writer of the Uttara Mimamsa Sariraka Sutras spends all his energy and skill
in refuting the Sankhya and only casually notices the other schools, it being the reason that in
the days of Vyasa and Krishna the Atheistic Sankhya school was the most predominant, in the
same way as in later times, Buddhism and J ainism came to have a larger share of treatment in
the hands of Hindu saints and writers. It has also to be noticed that the word Vedanta nowhere
occurs in the Gita or other Upanishads as meaning Sankara's system and the Brahmavadin has,
as such, taken a broader platform, in properly including under the term, both Advaita of Sankara,
the Dvaita and Visishtadvaita systems and we now hear of Advaita Vedanta, Dvaita Vedanta
etc., though the Western habit of calling Sankara's system as Vedanta is still used confusingly
enough by people, as in the passage we quoted above from the Brahmavadin 'the later Vedantic
sense.' (The other Indian schools, be it noted, do not indeed call Sankara's system Vedanta or
Advaita but have other names for it).
[* c.f. The following passages in the Anucasana Parva.
"I seek the protection of Himwhomthe Sankhyas describe and the Yogins think of as the Supreme, the foremost,
the Purusha, the Pervader of all things and the Master of all existent objects" &c. &c.
"I solicit boons fromHimwho cannot be comprehended by argument, who represents the object of the Sankhya
and the Yoga systems of Philosophy and who transcends all things, and whomall persons conversant with the
topics of enquiry worship and adore."
"That which is Supreme Brahman, that which is the highest entity, that which is the end of both the Sankhyas and
the Yogins, is without doubt identical with thee."
c.f. The same Parva pp. 140 and 141. P. C. Roy's edition.
"After this, Kabila, who promulgated the doctrines that go by the name of Sankhya, and who is honored by the
gods themselves said - I adored Bhava with great devotion for many lives together. The illustrious deity at last
became gratified with me and gave me knowledge that is capable of aiding the acquirer in getting over rebirth."
The Temple at the foot of Tirupati hill is called Kabileshwara and is the place where tradition says the sage
worshipped Bava or Siva.]
Mr. J ohnstone no doubt says that Krishna quotes directly from many Upanishads (one
writer is carried away by his veneration for Gita to say that the Upanishads quote from the
Gita!) and a number of verses, notably in the second book (we should like to know very much
what they are), which have the true ring of the old sacred teachings, and yet art not in them (in
which?) as they now stand. And then he airs his theory that Vedanta is the peculiar birth-right
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of the Kshatriyas and not of Brahmans. The reason why this unacknowledged quotations in the
Gita and other similar books are found, is that every Brahman in the olden days had committed
to memory the whole of the Vedas and Vedanta (Upanishads) and as such when they wrote and
when they spoke, these old thoughts and verses very naturally flowed from their pen and their
mouths,* and it is never the habit of the Indian scholar to quote his authority, chapter and verse.
And we come to the fact that the whole of the chapters 9, 10 and 11 of the Gita is a mere
reproduction and a short abstract of that central portion of the whole Vedas, called the
Catarudriya of the Yajur Veda. What is called transfiguration is the Visvaswarupa Darsna, or
the vision of the lord as the All, as manifested in the whole universe.

[* We knew a Tamil Scholar who would gossip for hours together, the whole conversation interlarded with
quotations fromKural and Naladiyar and an ordinary listener could not recognize that he was quoting at all.]

One and all, the objects in the whole universe, good, bad, sat, asat, high and low, animate,
inanimate are all named in succession and God is identified with all these and it is pointed out
that He is not all these and above all these, "the soul of all things, the creator of all things, the
pervader of all things" (Visvatmane Visva srije visvam avritiya thishthate). This catarudriyam
ought to be known to every Brahman more or less and it is the portion of the Vedas which is
recited in the temples every day. The praise of the catarudriyam occurs throughout the
Mahabharata, and most in Drona and Anucasana Parvas, and these parvas dealing as they do
with various visions of God (Viswasarupa Darsana) as granted to Rishis, Upamanyu, Vyasa,
Narada, Kabila, and Krishna himself on other occasions, contain the similar reproductions of
the catarudriya as in chapters 9 to 11 of the Gita. What is more important to be noted is that in
the case of Krishna, he had got the teaching from Upamanyu Maharishi, and after initiation
(Diksha) into this mystery teaching and performance of tapas, he gets to see the vision himself,
and he describes it as follows (vide page 87 to 91 Anusasanaparva. P. C. Roy's translation).
[ Sri Krishna himself says Hear fromme, O King, the catarudriya, which, when risen in the morning, I repeat
with joined hands. The great devotee, Prajapati created that prayer at the end of his austerity." Anucasana Parva,
chapter V.]
"The hair on my head, O son of Kunti, stood on its end, and my eyes expanded with
wonder upon beholding Hara, the refuge of all the deities and the dispeller of all their
griefs............................ Before me that Lord of all the Gods, viz. Sarva, appeared seated in all
his glory. Seeing that lcana had showed Himself to me by being seated in glory before my eyes,
the whole universe, with Prajapati to Indra, looked at me. I, however, had not the power to look
at Mahadeva. The great Deity then addressed me saying, "Behold, O Krishna and speak to me.
Thou hast adored me hundreds and thousands of times. There is no one in the three worlds that
is dearer to me than thou." And the praise by Krishna which follows is almost what Arjuna
himself hymned about Krishna. Vyasa meeting Aswathama after his final defeat tells him also
that Krishna and Arjuna had worshipped the Lord hundreds and thousands of times. And does
not this explain Krishna's own words in the Gita that he and Arjuna had innumerable births (iv.
5).
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What we wish to point out is that this transfiguration scene with its gruesome
description which Mr. J ohnstone wants to trace to Puranic legends preserved from South
Indian aborigines is, by express text and by the authority of Krishna himself traced to the
second Veda; and to say that the Yajur Veda, the Central portion* of this Veda, should copy
the holiest portion of the whole Vedas, as believed by the contemporaries and predecessors of
Krishna, from the demonology of the South Indians, could only be a parody of truth; and if this
be true, this demonology of the South Indians, instead of a thing being repugnant must have
been glorious indeed, to be copied by the Brahmavadins of Yajur Veda days. Western Scholars
have only misread and misunderstood the nature of this transfiguration and Visvarupa mystery,
as they have misread the mystic Personality of Rudra or Siva Himself, whose ideal these
scholars say, was also copied from the aborigines. To the credit of Mrs. Besant, be it said, she
has understood both these mysteries better than any other European. Siva's whole personality,
with his eight forms, Ashtamuhurtams (see page 220 of the Siddhanta Deepika Vol. I, for full
description)
[ * It is believed and it is a fact that the Panchatchara Mantra of the modern Hinduism is found in the very middle
of the three Vedas, Rig, Yajur and Saman, which fact is set forth in the following Tamil verse.

c.f. The whole catarudriya passage quoted in sec. II. chap III. vol. vi, Muir's Sanskrit texts.]
earth, fire, air etc., and his three eyes, as Soma, Surya and Agni, and His Head as Akasa, and
his eight arms as the eight cardinal points, his feet as Padala, and the sky as his garment,
Digambara, and himself, a Nirvani and living in cemeteries and yet with his Sakti, Uma, a Yogi
yet a Bhogi, all these give a conception of the supreme Majesty of the Supreme Being which,
no doubt, nobody can look up in the face. Does any ordinary person dare to look up nature's
secrets and nature's ways in the process of destruction and creation and sustentation? If so, he
will be a bold man, a great man. Strip nature of its outside smooth and fragrant cloak and what
do you see inside? The picture is ugly, dirty and gruesome. Yet the scientist perceives all this
with perfect equanimity, nay with very great pleasure. A small drop of water discloses to the
microscopic examination multitudes of living germs, and these fight with one another, devour
each other with great avidity. We drink the water. Plants drink up the water. Animals eat the
plants, insects and animals devour one another. Man, the greatest monster, devours all. There
is thus constant struggle of life and death going on in nature. And when this nature is, as thus,
exposed to view in the transfiguration, and Arjuna sees before him this havoc, in the Person of
the Supreme as the Destroyer, ('Devourer' of Katha Upanishad) (and be it remembered that this
Viswarupa Darsan is more gruesome in Gita no doubt, than similar ones presented in the
Anucasana Parva, as Krishna's whole burden of advice in the Gita is simply to force Arjuna to
fight and kill his foes, and to conquer his repugnance), a remark that it is derived from Puranic
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legends and aboriginal practices is altogether out of place. We hope to pursue this subject on a
future occasion.
In old India, as elsewhere, the minds of the leading men were of many complexions; so
that we have great idealists, great thinkers of the atomic school, great nihilists, and great
preachers of doctrines wholly agnostic. It is the custom to gather a certain group of these
teachings together, with the title of the Six Philosophies; while all others, considered as
heterodox, are outside the pale of sympathy, and, therefore, to be ignored. Chiefest among the
outcast philosophies is the doctrine of Prince Siddhartha, called also Shakya Muni, and
Gautama Buddha. Of the others, it would be hard to find many students of more than three -
namely, the Vedanta, Sankhya, and Yoga: while the Vaiseshika, Nyaya, and first Mimamsa are
little more than a name, even to professed students of Indian thought. They have their followers,
doubtless; but there has not been found one among them of such mental force as to give them
a modern expression, or to show that they bear any message to the modern world. We shall
speak, here, only of the three most popular among the orthodox schools: and this chiefly in
connection with a single noteworthy book, - the Bhagavat Gita, or "Songs of the Master." If
we were asked, off hand, to which of the three schools the Bhagavat Gita belonged, we should
most likely answer, off-hand, that it was, undoubtedly a text-book of the Vedanta, and indeed
one of the weightiest works of the Vedanta School. For is it not commented on by the Great
Sankara, chiefest light of the Vedanta, and does he not quote from it as of divine authority, a
fully inspired scripture?
Yet, for all this, I think there are other aspects of the Bhagavat Gita which show that
this answer is too simple; and that, while the Songs of the Master undoubtedly form a bulwark
of Vedantic orthodoxy, there is very much in them which belongs to the Sankhya, and even
more that is the property of the Yoga School. It seems pretty certain that the Bhagavat Gita has
grown up gradually, beginning with a ballad on Krishna and Arjuna, much of which is
preserved in the first book, and which suggests all through, the burden of Krishna's admonition:
Therefore fight, Oh son of Kunti! It seems likely that the next element in the structure of the
Bhagavat Gita is drawn from the great Upanishads, the Katha Upanishad more especially. And
this suggests a very interesting thought; side by side with many direct quotations from the
Upanishads in our possession, there are a number of verses, notably in the second book, which
have the true ring of the old sacred teachings, and yet are not in them as they now stand. And
this suggests that we have only fragments; that there was once much more, in the form of verses
and stones, which made up the mystery teaching of the Rajput Kings, - that secret doctrine
spoken of so clearly in the Upanishads themselves as the jealously guarded possession of
Kshatriya race. The fourth book of the Bhagavat Gita fully endorses this idea, since Krishna
traces his doctrine back through the Rajput sages to the solar King, Ikshvaku, to Manu,)the
Kshatriya, and finally to the sun, the genius of the Rajput race. And this, in connection with
that teaching of successive re-births, which, we know from the two greatest Upanishads, was
the central point of the royal doctrine. So we are inclined to suggest that we have in many
verses of the Bhagavat Gita, additional portions of the old mystery doctrine, parts of which
form the great Upanishads. And it is quite credible that Krishna, - whom we believe to be as
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truly historical as J ulius Cesar, - as an initiate in these doctrines did actually quote to Arjuna a
series of verses from the mystery teaching, and that these verses are faithfully preserved for us
to the present day. However that may be, there the verses are: a series of verses from the
Upanishads, had a second series, entirely resembling these in style and thought. As a third
element in the Bhagavat Gita we have the Puranic episode of the transfiguration, and, we must
say, it reproduces all that grim and gruesome ugliness of many armed gods, with terrible teeth,
which the puranas have preserved most probably from the wild faiths of the dark aboriginals
and demon worshippers of Southern India.
Finally, there is a very important element, into the midst of which the episode of the
transfiguration is forcibly wedged; and of this element we shall more especially speak. It
consists of the characteristic Sankhya doctrine of the three potencies of Nature completely
developed along physical, mental, and moral lines. A word about this doctrine, which we may,
with great likelihood, refer to Kapila himself, the founder of the School. His conception seems
to be this; there is the consciousness in us, the spirit, the perceiver: and, over against this there
is Nature, the manifested world. This duality of subject and object has great gulf fixed between
its two elements, whose characteristics, wholly and irreconcilably opposed. Of the subject, the
spirit, consciousness, we can only say that it perceives. To predicate of consciousness any
characteristic drawn from our experience of objects, such for instance as mortality, beginning
or end, is to be guilty of a cardinal error. Of Nature, the opposite element of existence, Kapila's
teaching, it seems, was something like this; Nature may be divided into three elements: the
substance of phenomena; the force of phenomena; and thirdly the dark space or void, in which
phenomena take place. Take a simple illustration. The observer, with closed eyes, is the spirit
or consciousness, not yet involved in Nature. He opens his eyes, and, instead of the dark space,
or void, sees the world of visible objects, or substance, and there is perpetual movement among
the things thus observed. This is force. Thus we have the three elements of Nature, - the three
qualities, as they are generally called, - which make up the central idea of Kapila's cosmic
system, and which are not to be found, in that shape, in any of the oldest Upanishads: they are,
therefore, no part of the Vedanta, properly so called, but distinctively Sankhya teachings. Now,
these distinctive teachings form a very important part of the Bhagavat Gita, and are woven into
many passages, besides the-chief passages already referred to, in the seventeenth and
eighteenth books. Thus, as early as the second book, we have a reference to the Sankhya
teachings: "The Vedas have the three Nature-powers as their object; but thou, Arjuna become
free from the three powers." It is needless to quote the many passages that refer to the same
teaching; to the divisions of the knower, the knowing, the known; the doer, the doing, the deed;
the gift, the giving, the giver; and so forth, according to the three-Nature-powers. All this is
carried out with much intellectual skill, and dialectic acumen: but it has nothing in the world
to do with the main motive of the book, - Arjuna's action under the calamity of civil war; and
Krishna's assertion of the soul, as the solution of Arjuna's dilemma.
There is also a very important element in the Bhagavad Gita, equally characteristic of
the Yoga school, whose final exponent, though not, in all probability, its founder, was Patanjali,
the author of the commentary on Panini's grammar, who lived, it is believed, some three
THE UNION OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHIES

10

centuries before our era. We do not regard the directions as to choosing a lonely place, a fawn-
skin seat, over sprinkled kusha grass, and the fixing of the attention on the tip of the nose, as
necessarily, or most characteristically belonging to the Yoga school, though they are
undoubtedly important elements in that teaching. What seems more vital is the moral concept
of action with disinterestedness, of action without attachment, according to the primary motion
of the will; this teaching, it seems to us, is at once characteristic of the Yoga system, and foreign
to the spirit of the Upanishads; for the Upanishads, so high is their ideal, are not greatly
concerned with fallen man or the means of his redemption. They look on man as an immortal
spirit, already free and mighty, and therefore needing no redemption. Man, needing to be
redeemed, is a later thought; one springing from a more self-conscious age.
Now the connection of this thought with the Sankhya philosophy is obvious. It regards
man, the spirit, as ensnared by Nature, and consequently as needing release and, for the
Sankhya school, this release comes through an effort of intellectual insight. But this concept,
man saved by intellect, is essentially untrue to life, where man lives not by intellect alone, or
even chiefly, but by the will; and it became necessary, granting our fall, to find a way of
salvation, of redemption through the will. This way is the Yoga philosophy. It is the natural
counterpart and completion of the Sankhya and has always been so regarded, The pure spirit
of the over-intellectual Sankhya becomes Lord of the more religious Yoga; - using religion in
the sense of redemption to the will. But, though thus complementary, the two systems might
easily come to be considered as opposing each other; and it seems to be part of the mission of
the Bhagavat Gita - or rather, of certain passages forcibly imported into it, to reconcile the
Sankhya and the Yoga once for all, and to blend these two with the Vedanta.
We need only quote two passages, which are obviously due to the Sankhya - Yoga
reconciler. The first is dragged into the middle of the following sentence, and evidently has no
true place there: "If slain, thou shalt attain to heaven; or conquering, thou shalt inherit the land.
Therefore rise, son of Kunti, firmly resolved for the fight. Holding as equal, good and ill-
fortune, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thyself for the fight, and thou shall not incur sin.
And thus there shall be no loss of ground, nor does any defeat exist; a little of this law saves
from great fear;" - the law, namely, that the slain in battle go to Paradise. Now into the midst
of this complete and continuous passage has been inserted this verse: "This understanding is
declared according to Sankhya hear it now, according to Yoga." Needless to say, the last part
of it has as little to do with the Yoga philosophy as the first has with the Sankhya. Then again,
in the next book, the third: "Two rules are laid down by me: salvation by intellect for the
Sankhya; salvation by works for the followers of Yoga." So that one part of the Bhagavat Gita
is devoted to the reconciliation of these two complementary though rival schools.
[Extract fromthe Madras Mail, 23
rd
December 1897 by Charles Johnston, M. R. A. S., B. C. S., RET.]